Browsing all articles tagged with Estate
Mar
14

How A Secondary Website Can Help Your Real Estate Business

If you’re looking for a unique way to get your real estate business out in the public eye, consider a separate website that plays to one of your interests. The people who come to your secondary website in search of information about the interest may also be persuaded to consider you for their next real estate transaction. Your keys to utilizing this form of advertising are genuine interest in your chosen subject, a neat and easy to navigate website, and effective advertising.

Brian and Rita Burke of Kenna & Co. Real Estate have done just that with their Highlands Ranch Pets page, which has netted them at least one client. The Pets page is a pet directory for Highlands Ranch; a suburb of Denver CO. Its main claim to fame is the Lost & Found Pets pages. There is little to indicate that Kenna & Co. Real Estate has anything to do with the site besides a small reference link at the bottom, but it has managed to call attention to their business to the point where someone using the Highland Ranch Pets site has felt encouraged to seek them out.

It helps if your website has to deal with something local, such as the above example of a local pets page. Something that has to do with the locale that you deal with real estate in is more likely to draw people interested in the area and consequently more interested in real estate in the area. Subjects like local charities, drives, events and directories of interest to residents or potential residents are good ones to start with.

You must be interested in your chosen subject if you are to succeed in using this website as a form of advertising for your real estate business. Whether it is collecting stamps or information about local charity drives for battered wives, you should be passionate about it. Passion serves two purposes: it means that you are more likely to stick with your secondary website for its own sake and you are more likely to write in a manner that enthuses other people on the subject. 

You should get a domain name that reflects what the website is about: HighlandsRanchPets.com is something that tells the viewer immediately that the site is about pets in Highlands Ranch. It’s easy for people to remember. A short, relevant domain name also looks better on business cards and flyers. 

The design of your website should be simple. It should be uncluttered and easy to find information. While pictures do accentuate a website, too many can cause download problems. To start out, get an easy template and use it while you build your page’s reputation, until you have the time to create your own or the luck to happen upon the “perfect” set-up for your website.

One solution to this is auto-installations of software such as Wordpress, which allow you to have a website and/or blog with very little work. There are many free templates on the Internet that you can modify to better reflect your website or leave as they are to save time.

Another time-saver is Google alerts. Google bots trawl all manner of pages to provide Google users with the most up-to-date search results. They can be used to send Google Alerts on a specific subject or phrase to your In-box, which saves you time searching for news about your locale or subject. 

If you have the inclination and time, a secondary website that showcases your location and a hobby or issue that interests you can help to advertise your real estate business and gather new clients. It takes some dedication of time and resources, but can ultimately be rewarding, both for your business and for the subject you have chosen to dedicate it to.

Mar
13

Real Estate Marketing – How to Increase Your Real Estate Sales With Search Engine Optimization

Marketing is highly essential for the success of a real estate business. Since majority

of the home buyers use the internet to shop for homes, it has made important for the

realtors to adopt the internet as well as its technologies to market and advertise their

business.

Nowadays, a range of real estate marketing techniques are employed to attain maximum

Return of Investment (ROI) of a particular real estate business, among which perhaps

the most prominent one is real estate search engine optimization. Pay per Click

Advertising (PPC), Cost per Lead (CPL), Really Simple Syndication (RSS), and blog

marketing are the other significant real estate marketing techniques. Discussed further

in this article is the importance of SEO in real estate business.

Search engine optimization for real estate allows greater visibility of your real

estate website on the search engine results, thereby enhancing your real estate business.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is simply a technique adopted to rank your website high

on the search engine results in order to increase the web visitor counts, which in turn

build traffic to your website.

Some of the essential steps involved in SEO are analyzing current standing of the website

and its code; optimization, i.e. tweaking and tuning up the HTML codes, after tracing out

the weaknesses of the website; submitting the website to some of the top search engines

such as Google and Yahoo; and maintaining website rankings by reviewing the latest search

engines algorithm.

Prime benefits derived from real estate SEO include:

·Maximum ROI

·Attaining high search engine rankings for your real estate market

·Creating an online presence

·Branding your realty business

However, SEO demands a great deal of time and effort, and its success usually

depends on such factors as keywords included in URL and domain names, keyword

density in content, links to internal web pages as well as external web pages,

Hence, it is advisable to lean on a SEO expert to carry out the optimization works.

But, it is highly vital to make a thorough investigation with regard to its reputation

and services offered, before approaching a SEO firm.

Mar
13

Search Engine Marketing Leads Offer Real Estate SEO Services

Search Engine Marketing – Stage 2 Web Development provides Stage 2 Web Development is a full service internet marketing agency, with a focus in  and the procument of natural search engine marketing leads.

Search Engine Marketing is the fastest growing form of advertising. Over 80% of all internet users access the content they are interested in via a search engine and therefore a companies success is largely dependant on This is especially true for companies that are able to secure One industry in particular which is especially dependent on this is the real estate industry.Real estate search engine optimization is fast becoming essential for any real estate agency hoping to reach clients over the internet. Most home buyers and renters will perform a google search prior to selecting a real estate agent,so it is absolutely crucial for a real estate salesperson to have a strong real estate seo firm working on their behalf.Get more detail at http://s2wd.com/

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Search Engine Marketing – Stage 2 Web Development provides . Stage 2 Web Development is a full service internet marketing agency, with a focus in  and the procument of natural search engine marketing leads.

Search Engine Marketing is the fastest growing form of advertising. Over 80% of all internet users access the content they are interested in via a search engine and therefore a companies success is largely dependant on . This is especially true for companies that are able to secure . One industry in particular which is especially dependent on this is the real estate industry.Real estate search engine optimization is fast becoming essential for any real estate agency hoping to reach clients over the internet. Most home buyers and renters will perform a google search prior to selecting a real estate agent,so it is absolutely crucial for a real estate salesperson to have a strong real estate seo firm working on their behalf.Get more detail at http://s2wd.com/

 

 

Mar
13

Adsense and Real Estate Web Sites; Diversified Income

Adsense is considered to be one of the most powerful tools in a website publisher’s arsenal. Create an Adsense Account today and watch your profits soar.


As a Realtor, it enables you to monetize you real estate agent web site, and when done properly you can generate a considerable amount of money from it. Google has lots of FREE Tutorials that’ll teach you how to maximize income generated on your site.


Visit www.google.com to learn how!


Does Google Adsense Offer Direct Deposit?

Yes! Electronic Funds Transfer (ETF) is offered in 16 countries whereby your payments are deposited directly into your bank account in your local currency.


Check Google Adsense support to see which countries participate in this option. You will need to sign up for this option after your application is approved by signing into your account. You then click the edit link adjacent to the payment header.


After you fill out the bank information, Google Adsense will make a small test deposit into your account. This is for security purposes to assure the account is really your own.


Watch your account for the test deposit to post, usually within just a few days. After you have received the deposit from Google, log back in to your account and in the Payment Details section, click Verify Account.


You then will need to enter the amount of the test deposit. If you do not complete this step, your payments will be on hold. Once you enter the test deposit amount correctly, your bank will be approved and selected as your form of payment.


What Not to Do

Google Adsense is a fun and easy way to make extra money. It’s important to follow the rules though, as Google is serious about the integrity of this program. Not following the rules could result in your Google Adsense account being terminated. Here are a few Don’ts for using the program:


Never, ever, ever click on your own ads. Google Adsense makes it very clear this won’t be tolerated.


Don’t ask your friends and family to click on your ads. Rather, earn money by referring them to the Google Adsense program.


Don’t participate in the Google Adsense program strictly for the money. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It will take time and hard work to make a profit.


Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything the first day. Although the Google Adsense program is extremely user-friendly, it may take a little time to integrate all the facets of the program. Be patient and above all, have fun!


Hopefully, these helpful tips will ease you into using the program and help you avoid mistakes that could possibly cost you a lot of time or money.


Themed Adsense Units Can Brighten Up Your Holidays.

What are Themed Ad Units? In short, they are ads that have special colors and graphics to celebrate the holidays and seasons of the year!


For example, you might see your ad with orange print with a picture of a black cat for Halloween. How about red print with a green mistletoe for Christmas?


The Themed Ad Units are specifically tailored to users in the appropriate locations as determined by their IP address. For instance, a user in the United States might see colors and graphics appropriate to the Fourth of July while users everywhere could see colors and graphics for New Years Day.


Again, it’s your choice and your page. You can turn Themed Ad Units on or off by yourself. Just log in to your account, go to the My Account tab. On the Account Settings page, scroll down to the Ad Type Preferences section and click Edit.


You can now enable or disable the Themed Ad Units. Click save changes and Voila! Your selection will apply to all your Google Adsense Ads.


Summarily, AdSense makes it possible for almost anyone with a web site or blog to earn some revenue from advertising, including Realtors, without having to employ sales people or spend precious time searching for advertisers.

Mar
12

Find Real Estate Deals in Google

Author admin    Category Google     Tags , , , ,

With Google you can run advertising campaigns on what is called ‘Google Adwords’. If you go to Google and search for anything you’ll see that there are listings down the side of the page and a couple at the top. These are paid advertisements. Go to Google and search the words sell my house adding your city to the search term first.

Ex: ‘Charlotte Sell My House’. Look at the different ads of local realtors and investors selling property. You can also search other keywords and include your city name. Keywords like, foreclosure, Buy my house, sell house fast, etc. Simply go to Google and set up an account to run your ad and when the user clicks on your link it will take them to your website. If you don’t have a website you can get a generic website very cheap but remember that you get what you pay for. If you get a generic website then you’ll be very limited in how you can customize it. The neat thing about Google is that you can set a daily and monthly budget. You can also set it up so that your ads will only show if someone in your area is searching for your particular keywords.

If you are in Orlando, FL, you may only want people who live within 50 miles to see your Google ad so if anyone further away searches, your ad won’t appear and that’ll save you money. You pay based on cost per click, not if they buy anything or sign up for more information. This is why it’s important to make sure you have a website that will capture their information before they leave. Google Adsense Google Adsense is another type of Google advertising. Have you ever visited a website and seen the ads down one side that reads; ads sponsored by Google? These are adsense advertisers. You set it up the same way but you specify that you want it to be put on other related websites. You can still select a geographic area so you aren’t wasting money. Google Search This method of locating properties actually qualifies for 4-5 methods. I’m mentioning it because with Google advertising, it is marketing.

There’s so much more to Google. You can Google anything. Think about how you could find motivated sellers, where you could market your properties, how you could build your buyers list of investors, how you could build your dream team, find local attorneys, appraisers, rehab contractors, etc. Here are a few samples of searches you could do to find all of these above ‘Free Real Estate Ads’ ‘Free Real Estate Listings’ ‘Sell my house’ ‘Buy My House’ ‘Foreclosure Listings’ ‘Investors Club’ ‘Investor Loans’ ‘Hard Money Loans’ ‘Find contractors’ ‘Find Attorneys’ ‘Find Appraisers’ ‘Find Local Realtors’, etc. You can also add your location in front of any of these searches to localize your search. Remember, you don’t have to know how to spell because anything spelled incorrectly, Google will ask you ‘Did You Mean?’.

Google Alerts Google Alerts is a FREE service provided by Google that allows you to list certain keywords and when something is posted to the internet, Google will send you an email with a link to the page. I have an alert on my name so anytime someone posts anything about me, I know about it. Let’s look at how you could use this as a real estate investor. What if you set up an alert with your location and keywords you’d use in searching for a property? Here are a couple examples: Charlotte Fixer Upper, Charlotte handyman special, Charlotte foreclosure or Charlotte motivated seller. The list could go on and on.

Mar
12

Twitter for Real Estate Professionals: What’s All the Tweeting About?

Tech savvy real estate agents understand the importance of using the Internet’s global reach to their advantage. They build informative websites that are optimized for search engines, they blog regularly, and have started to create profiles on various social networking sites like ActiveRain and Squidoo.

A relatively recent addition to the social networking sphere is Twitter, a place where you have only 140 characters to write something about your day, ask a question, or link to an article or website of interest. Some consider Twitter to be a place where users “micro-blog,” while others see it as more of a chat room with thousands of users ‘chatting’ all at once.

The original premise of Twitter was to provide a venue for people to post short, simple status updates; to answer the question: What are you doing? Users share stories about their pets, upcoming appointments, their moods, and much more. You can follow the adventures of other users, and accumulate followers of your own. You can direct questions and answers to specific people, or send out calls to everyone all at once.

The appeal of this type of technology baffles many real estate agents who’ve never used the service, but those who have stuck with Twitter see the benefits of this new type of networking.

Rather than trying to see Twitter as a revenue producer, it’s important to understand that Twitter is first and foremost a networking tool. Don’t be overtly promotional in your posts (known as “tweets”). If self promotion is your primary M.O., you’ll quickly lose followers. Users aren’t interested in being bombarded with spammy posts, so if you want to use the site to advertise your services, be very subtle and make sure that your personal posts far outnumbers the more professional ones.

While it may seem counterproductive to be laid back when you’re trying to promote your real estate business, you have to keep in mind the intention of social networking sites. They are meant for people to connect with others who share similar interests, or who live in the same community. The mood is casual and definitely more personal than your business website. Grammar and spelling rules are relaxed, and you can talk about the pizza you ate last night or the rotten movie you just watched. People following you will find your posts interesting because you’re being authentic.

The more people that get to know you and like you, the more opportunity you have to gain clients in the future. It’s the same as expanding your circle of contacts in the real world, and it can be invaluable for your business in the long run.

The idea of social networking being effective over the long term is critical to understand. Unless you are very lucky, you probably won’t gain any new clients right away, but you’re building a solid foundation of online friendships that may develop into business relationships.

In addition to being a vehicle for finding potential clients, Twitter is also a great venue for networking with other agents. You can share tips, ask questions, and refer clients to agents outside of your service area. Other agents will do the same for you. Building relationships with other real estate agents can be educational and emotionally satisfying, as they can relate to the stresses you encounter on a daily basis.

Twitter is free and it only takes a moment to create an account. Search your area for people with accounts, or see if anyone you already know has an account. You can start to follow their tweets and engage people in conversation. Soon you’ll have followers too, and you’ll begin to appreciate the possibilities that this kind of networking can offer. Be open-minded and creative, and soon you’ll see how you can make Twitter work for you and your realty business.

Mar
10

Have we hit the bottom of the Real Estate Market yet?


Have we hit the bottom of the Real Estate Market yet?

Part 2 (Excerpt)

And Michael as we mentioned before I’m in the middle of writing a book that is entitled Real Estate’s Future. And again what it is, is essentially a scoring model, where we have taken hundreds of different factors, enter them all together and what we look at is that this model can actually call the top and bottom of the real estate market. With this model we were actually able to call the top of the real estate market in Phoenix, Arizona six months before it happened.

Now we’re working on creating a national model. What we’re seeing today in the building numbers is that they came out really bad. And there was something on Zillow the other day that said that Americans have lost trillions of dollars in real estate value. And its easy to get all emotional about this especially if you’re one of those people who are losing their homes. And you are one of the people in trouble, but eventually we will get to the bottom market again. Hopefully by then I’ll have my Book complete and we will be able to warn people that we think it’s going to be the bottom of the market.

I always joke about, you know i’s the bottom of the market when something happens called “capitulation”. When essentially everyone has given up, and if you’ll both recall when we were at the top of the market back in 2005-2006 you couldn’t go to a party without having at least 10 people tell you about all the real estate that they were buying, and all the millions of dollars that they were making.

And now my definition of when we’re going to hit the bottom is when you go to a party you tell someone you are going to buy some real estate and they all take you out back and slap you around because the think you’ve gone crazy. And that’s how you are really going to know that we have hit the bottom. Because you are not going to know we have hit the bottom until long after we have.

So I think that right now is the absolute fabulous time, especially for first time home buyers to jump in there. I said my brother went out the other day and picked up a couple of repos for like $30,000 apiece. One of them, he moved tenant in to a week later. It was broom it out, paint and carpet, and put the tenant in the house.

Now, to tie this all back into the economy you mentioned the jobs market. Do you have those numbers? I do and one of the things that still sticks out in my mind from the previous broadcast last week is Dan pointed out some numbers talking about housing sales in Maricopa County as compared to this time a year ago, and what those numbers represent now, that number has actually increased pretty significantly.

And when I looked at and started thinking through the process of what that means in terms of the marketplace, the real estate market specifically, there is a number of positive influences that the media sure is not going to sell any papers with, that’s why it’s become such an important discussion. Dan, do you still have information about this?

Yes I do still have those numbers here and that’s one of the things that we look at in the book that I am working on writing, Real Estate’s Future. And actually if you want to get on the list to get a free copy of the book, I am going to give away the first hundred copies for free. You can go to my website, http://realestatesfuture.com and just put in your e-mail address and your name and I’ll make sure you get a copy as soon as were done printing it, which could honestly be more than a few months from now. But I’m guessing before we see the bottom of this market.

But one of the things we look at is year over year home sales. In the last six months we have seen home sales increase from ‘07 to ‘08, in some cases, 30 to 40% per month, the home sales have gone up. And at the same time were seeing the median home price come down to the $150,000-$160,000 range. Now we’re definitely in a place where the median income family can go out there and afford to buy that house. When you have 78% of the houses selling for less than $250,000, virtually every family in Maricopa County can afford to buy one of those houses…

Feb
27

Real Estate Search Engine Marketing Options

Search Engine Marketing: Options for Real Estate Agents

Using search engines has become one of the most popular activities on the Internet, second only to email. But with millions of websites and billions of web pages, potential homebuyers need a tool that can sift through this clutter to find the realtor websites relevant to their search.

Thanks mostly to the techniques pioneered by Google, search engines have become remarkably effective at providing results that are highly relevant to the term or phrase the user searches on like

Homes for Sale. But to be relevant, you have to be found, and this is where search engine marketing comes in.

What is Search Engine Marketing?

You may have great inventory, a fantastic local clientele, and a high-end new website, but if that website doesn’t show up on the first two pages of Google (or Yahoo, MSN, or Ask Jeeves), you’re not getting the exposure you need to remain competitive.

Why aren’t you showing up? You may have overlooked search engine marketing. Effective search engine marketing is about more than just optimizing your website or submitting it to the search engines for indexing. When hundreds or thousands of your competitors are competing with you on your service and keywords, just one Internet marketing technique won’t give you high rankings.

Studies have proven what most Internet users know already – people usually do not look past the first two pages of search results. And with over 71% of homebuyers initiating their home search on the Internet (according to the National Association of Realtors), you can’t afford to miss out on all of those active buyers. And if your site isn’t ranked high, it probably isn’t pulling in leads either – leads that translate to more sales and more commissions.

How does it work?

Unlike organic search engine optimization, which you (or your webmasters) can do yourself, search engine marketing requires a little financial investment to generate results. It’s pay to play, but the rewards are worth it.

Generally speaking, search engine marketing is the advertising that appears on top of or along side the “natural” or organic search results on search engine sites such as Google, MSN, Yahoo and many others, usually under the heading of “Sponsored Links” or “Sponsored Sites.” These links can also show up on many consumer and industry-specific websites, depending on the keywords used like Fort Myers Beach Florida Real Estate.

The copy that you see in the advertisement is usually written by the site owner, who will also come up with the keywords and keyword phrases trigger the ad. The site owner also determines how much she is willing to pay for each click as well as daily maximum limit, giving total control of targeting and spending. Advertising charges are only incurred when a visitor clicks on the ad, not when the ad is shown.

Although sponsored listings are a popular way to conduct your search engine marketing, there are other ways to get great results. Many real estate agents are finding that having the time and expense of a good search engine marketing service done for them by a third-party is a great way to go.

Getting traffic to your real estate website

In addition to buying sponsored (paid) listings, lead tracking, and email marketing excellent strategies for drawing relevant real estate leads to your real estate website. All of these methods work quite well and give you a high return on investment, when done properly that is. If you do not have the time or energy to invest in creating your own real estate marketing campaign for search engines, you can always leave it to the experts to create a custom-designed solution for you.

But let’s look at each of the above methods in more detail.

Sponsored (Paid) Listings

As mentioned above, sponsored, or paid listings are a great way to get fast visibility on the major search engines.

Google AdWords is by far the most popular sponsored listings program, mainly because the Google network is used by 80% of all Internet users. The AdWord program allows you to create your own ads based upon the keywords most relevant to your business. You can also choose to have Google write the ad for you for an extra fee.

Lead Tracking

Sponsored listings and SEO can help attract leads, but to truly get the most out of SEM, you will want to develop a lead tracking system to target the customers and prospects most likely to be interested in your services.

Lead tracking brings both short- and long-term benefits to your company – giving you instant access to information about each sales prospect while also helping to streamline and manage the sales process.

Lead tracking not only helps you attract more customers, it also tracks your return on investment, so you know exactly how much each lead is worth, how many leads convert into transactions, and your overall return on investment in your advertising dollars.

Email Marketing

So now you have high rankings on the search engines and lead tracking is bringing in numerous high-quality prospects. Now what? Email marketing is the icing on the SEM cake – it impresses your prospects by allowing you to send them valuable information on the market and it helps you to stay fresh in their minds.

Relevant Real Estate Website Traffic

At Fidelity Assets we have a better way. We charge you a flat fee every month for the number of visitors you want sent to your site from the search engines. That’s it. Your costs are fixed, and your traffic and quality is guaranteed. You can start with as few as 30 visitors a month for a flat $59.95/month fee. You can buy more traffic as your business grows over time.

Fidelity Assets was created and is staffed by search engine marketing experts. Our company manages online advertising for real estate agents, and our employees are veterans of companies such as NBC Internet, Xoom.com, Infoseek, CNET and other pioneering advertising and e-commerce companies. We know the online ad space better than anyone.

Feb
19

How Much Do I Charge For Real Estate Marketing Online?

If a Real Estate agent wants to hire me to market his business online at places like facebook, twitter and such, how much does a person change for a job like this?

Feb
4

Using Social Media For Your Real Estate Business

If you are interested in using social media for your real estate business then you should try it. You will find there are many benefits to this type of marketing. It is a more personal approach for people who are searching online and it can allow people to see a property up close and personal. This also can save from wasting anyone’s time on looking at a property.

Using social media for your real estate business is a great idea because it creates a personal feel for your website. When people can see you talking then they almost feel as if they know you personally. If you offer the ability for people to chat live with you then it is even better because they get to meet you in person. Social media is a smarter approach because discussing real estate with people through email is not very personal. People are vulnerable when they are looking for a home because it is usually one of the biggest decisions people make in their lives. That is why the entire process should be made personal.

Another benefit to using social media for your real estate business is that you can give people the opportunity to see a home over the computer. If you have cameras setup then you can offer virtual tours and have them online. This allows people to decide if they like a home or not. This means you will waste less time showing homes to people who are not interested. Each time you go to a home then the people are more serious about the buy. When you don’t use social media and offer an opportunity for people to see a home for sale then they might absolutely love the outside of the home and have to get inside. Once they get inside the home they hate everything about it. This has probably happened to you a million times in the past, but you can really minimize situations like this by using social media for your real estate business.

Social media is also another way people are marketing their businesses today and you can too. It is proving to be true that people online are more interested in social media sites than those with plain text. If you offer something interactive for the user then they are more apt to pay attention. Creativity is important. However, you should be sure to provide useful information that the viewers can benefit from with your business. Social media is also used to generate larger traffic to a business website and it really works.

There are many ways for using social media for your real estate business. You can create a more personal and up close feel for your business while prospects are about to make one of the biggest decisions of their lives. You can also give potential buyers the opportunity to view homes in advance so you and the buyers save time. In addition, social media can help improve your website and generate more traffic which could lead to more sales.

David Ledoux is an author, speaker, trainer and mentor to entrepreneurs. His newest report The Small Business Death Sentence can be downloaded for free at http://bigmoneyfreetime.com